Great Adventure plans to build hotel on site
Special meeting of Planning Board scheduled for tonight
BY JOYCE BLAY
Staff Writer

JACKSON — Jackson’s biggest business has plans on the drawing board to get bigger. Representatives of Six Flags Great Adventure, Route 537, are expected to present an application to build the township’s first hotel when the Planning Board holds a special meeting at 7:30 p.m. today in the municipal building.

The proposed 500-room hotel will be built a half-mile inside the park, according to attorney Raymond Shea, who will represent Great Adventure. Shea said the hotel will rise to a height of about 89 feet. He did not know how many stories would be constructed in the hotel.

At its July 11 meeting, the Township Committee adopted an ordinance that paved the way for the construction of a hotel higher than 50 feet in the recreational commercial zone where Great Adventure is located. The new maximum hotel height permitted in a recreational commercial zone is 125 feet, Shea said.

Last year, the Zoning Board of Adjust-ment approved a request by developer Mitch Leigh for a variance to build a 55-foot-tall hotel in an area of Jackson Com-mons that was zoned for one no higher than 50 feet.

Jackson Commons is a 2.9 million-square-foot commercial campus on East Commodore and West Commodore boulevards, near the entrance to Interstate 195. The board also approved Leigh’s preliminary site plan.

However, during testimony last year, Leigh’s professionals said that construction of a hotel in the project would begin at a later phase in its anticipated buildout.

Shea, who also represents Leigh, said that although many of the rides at Great Adventure are taller than the amusement park’s proposed hotel, Jackson’s municipal land use code would have required that a variance be requested by the entertainment facility, too.

Instead, he said the ordinance the committee adopted last month could enable Great Adventure to open the hotel by spring 2007 if the Planning Board approves the application it will hear tonight.

“The ordinance stipulates that the further the setback, the higher the hotel that can be built,” Shea said on Monday. “This creates a harmonious blend in balance with the setting. Everything will be in scale.”

Shea noted that township planner Rick Ragan remarked in his review letter that the architectural plans for the hotel were most attractive.

Great Adventure will not request any variances and since the committee changed the hotel height requirement in the recreational commercial zone, the application will be fully conforming, Shea said.

According to the agenda for the Planning Board’s Aug. 4 special meeting, the application for the hotel was deemed complete on July 21. A decision is due on the application by Oct. 24.

Shea indicated that the amusement park’s management is hopeful that a favorable decision will be made by the board sooner than that date so that construction can be completed within two years.

“It’s designed for full-year operation, but no representation is being made that it will be open 365 days,” Shea told the Tri-Town News. “They want to maintain full flexibility so they can respond to market forces.”

Great Adventure is open seven days a week through the summer and weekends through the fall.